Trump says he'd be 'stupid' to turn down Qatar's offer of a new plane

[Retrograde]

38. Total cost of ownership

Back in the days when I was writing support plans for a multinational computer manufacturer my boss drummed that into my head: you can't just look at what's on the price tag, you have to consider all the costs - delivery, day-to-day running costs, maintenance, replacement parts, upgrades. A system may have a list price that's a few $K cheaper than a competitor, but if you have to pay that much to upgrade your buildings to run and maintain it is it really a savings?

And that's (part of) Donnie's problem: he sees "free" and his reasoning stops there. No concept of how much it will cost to bring the plane to the US, how much the inspections and (probably) refurbishment to bring it up to something that meets FAA standards, much less the Secret Service's ones, how much it will cost to fuel and maintain, etc. All he really knows about airplanes is how to run an airline into the ground (figuratively, that is)